The Society of S (14 page)

He turned and lumbered off toward the kitchen. As the door swung open, I heard the sounds of the others, biting and shouting, and as it shut I savored the tropical solitude, the only sound a slow dripping of water from a place I couldn’t see. For a moment I entertained myself by imagining turning the tables on the boy — biting his throat amid the orchids. And, I confess, something like lust stirred in me.

A minute later the door opened again and the boy came back, a glass of water in his hand.

I drank it slowly, then handed him the empty glass. “Thank you,” I said. “You’re free to go now.”

He blinked. He sighed a few times. Then he walked away.

As he opened the door, Kathleen pushed her way past him, into the greenhouse. “What was all
that
about?”

She must have been watching through the door’s window. I felt embarrassed, but I wasn’t sure why.

“I was thirsty,” I said.

It was already dark when I left the game. Kathleen had run out of powers and was lying on a sofa while Ryan and the others stood over her, chanting, “Death! Death!” I waved goodbye, but I don’t think she saw me.

I walked alone to the soda shop, unlocked my bike, and headed for home. Cars passed me, and once a teenaged boy shouted “Babe!” from a car window. Such things had happened before, and Kathleen advised me to “simply ignore them.” But the shout distracted me enough to make my bike wobble and skid on the wet leaves, and it took effort to regain control. Out of vanity I wasn’t wearing the bike helmet my father had bought, and as I pedaled on it occurred to me that I might have hurt myself.

After I put the bike away in the garage, I paused a moment and looked at the tall, graceful silhouette of the house, its left side traced by a woody vine. Behind those lighted windows were the familiar rooms of my childhood, and in one of them I’d find my father, no doubt sitting in his leather chair, reading. He might be thus forever, and the thought comforted me. Then, unbidden, a second thought struck me:
he
might be there forever — but what about me?

I recall vividly the smell of woodsmoke in the cold air as I stood, watching the house, wondering if I was, after all, mortal.

I looked up from a dish of milky macaroni and cheese. “Father?” I asked. “Am I going to die?”

He sat across from me, gazing at the food with visible disgust. “Possibly,” he said. “Particularly if you don’t wear your bicycle helmet.”

I’d told him about the close call I’d had on the way home. “Seriously,” I said. “If I had fallen and hit my head, would I be dead now?”

“Ari, I don’t know.” He reached across the table for a silver cocktail shaker, and poured himself a second drink. “So far you’ve recovered from the minor scrapes, yes? And that sunburn last summer — you were over that in a week, as I recall. You’ve been fortunate not to have any more serious health issues so far. That might change, of course.”

“Of course.” For the first time, I felt jealous of him.

Later that night, while we were reading in the living room, I found I had another question. “Father, how does hypnosis work?”

He picked up his bookmark (shaped like a silver feather) and inserted it into the novel he was reading — I think it was
Anna Karen-ina
, because not long afterward he urged me to read it, too.

“It’s all about dissociation,” he said. “One person focuses intently on the words or eyes of another, until his behavioral control is split off from his ordinary awareness. If the person is highly suggestible, he will behave as the other prescribes.”

I wondered how far I could have taken the boy in the greenhouse. “Is it true that you can’t make someone do something they don’t want to?”

“That’s a matter of considerable debate,” he said. “The most recent research suggests that under the right circumstances, a suggestible person can be made to do almost anything.” He looked across at me, his eyes amused, as if he knew what I’d been up to.

And so I changed my focus. “Did you ever hypnotize me?”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “Don’t you remember?”

“No.” I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of anyone controlling my behavior.

“Sometimes, when you were very young, you had a tendency to cry.” His voice was low and quiet, and it paused after the word
cry
. “For no apparent reason, you would make the most unearthly sounds, and of course I tried to placate you with formula, with rocking, with lullabies, and everything else I could think of.”

“You
sang
to me?” I’d never heard my father sing, or so I thought.

“You truly don’t remember?” His face was wistful. “I wonder why you don’t. In any case, yes, I did sing, and sometimes even that had no effect. And so, one night out of sheer desperation, I looked steadily into your eyes, and with my eyes I told you to be at peace. I told you that you were safe, and cared for, and that you should be content.

“And you stopped crying then. Your eyes closed. I held you. You were so small, wrapped in a white blanket.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I held you close to my chest, and I listened to your breathing, until morning.”

I had an impulse to get up from my chair and embrace him. But I sat still. I felt too shy.

He opened his eyes. “Before I became your father, I didn’t know what worry was,” he said. He picked up his book again.

I stood up and said goodnight. Then I thought of another question. “Father, what lullaby did you sing to me?”

He kept his eyes on the page. “It’s called
Murucututu
,” he said. “It’s a Brazilian lullaby, one that my mother sang to me. It’s the name of a small owl. In Brazilian myth, the owl is the mother of sleep.”

He looked up then, and our eyes met. “Yes, I will sing it to you,” he said. “Sometime. But not tonight.”

Do you see letters and words in color? Since I can remember, the letter
P
has always been a deep emerald shade, and
S
has always been royal blue. Even the days of the week have special colors: Tuesday is lavender, and Friday is green. The condition is called synesthesia, and it’s been estimated that one in two thousand people is a synesthete.

According to the Internet, virtually all vampires are synesthetes.

And this is how I spent my mornings: surfing the Internet on my laptop computer, looking for clues, which I copied into my journal. (I’ve torn them out since, for reasons that will soon become clear.) Page after page of Internet lore I copied, and I realized I wasn’t any less inane than Kathleen and her role-playing friends with their black notebooks filled with chants and spells.

But even though at times I doubted my research and questioned what I learned, I kept at it. I didn’t know where it was going, but I felt compelled to proceed. Think of a jigsaw puzzle. Even when the puzzle isn’t assembled, the pieces scattered in the box contain the picture.

Mrs. McG made a big point of insisting that I spend the weekend with Kathleen. She reminded me of it every day that week, and on Friday, when she drove home, I was with her. (For me,
Friday
is always vivid green. For you, too?)

Kathleen didn’t seem different to me. By now I was accustomed to her dark clothing and excessive makeup. She looked a little more on edge, perhaps. We spent Friday night watching television and eating pizza with the family. Michael sat apart, not saying much, watching me, and I allowed myself to relish his attention.

On Saturday Kathleen and I slept late and then went to the mall, where we wandered for hours, trying on clothes and watching people.

It was an ordinary weekend until Saturday night. Mrs. McG insisted that we all go to Mass. Kathleen said we had other plans. Her mother said those could wait.

Without much more protest, Kathleen gave in, and I sensed that this fight was part of their weekend ritual.

“I’ve never been inside a church,” I said.

The McGarritts stared at me as if I were a space alien.

Kathleen muttered, “Lucky you.”

The church was rectangular, built of dingy bricks — not at all the imposing structure I’d expected. It smelled musty inside, like old paper and stale cologne. Behind the altar, several stained-glass windows depicted Jesus and his disciples, and I kept my eyes on them through most of the service. Stained glass always makes me daydream.

Among the congregation sitting in the pews, I saw three of Kathleen’s friends from the vampire game, including the boy who had wanted to “sire” me. He saw me, too, but pretended he didn’t. All of the role-players were wearing black, and it struck me as a little strange to see them mouthing the words of hymns and prayers.

Next to me, Kathleen kept crossing and uncrossing her legs and sighing. Later tonight the role-players would be meeting at Ryan’s house for another session, and she’d promised me a real part to play. I wasn’t much looking forward to it.

At the altar, the priest was quoting the Bible. He was an old man with a singsong voice, easy to ignore — until suddenly his words broke through my reverie.

“Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life.” He raised a silver goblet in both hands.